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ANDREW WYLIE, D, D 



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N I E C L A 



AT THE COMMENCEMENT, 



S E P TEMBER, 18 4 8. 




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BACCALAUREATE 



BY 



ANDREW WYLIE, D. D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE INDIANA UNIVERSITY, 



ADDRESSED TO THE 



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SENIOR CLASS 



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SEPTEMBER, 1818. 









BLOOM INGTON, INDIANA: 

PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE ''INDIANA TRIBUNE. 



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18 4 8. 



BACCALAUREATE. 



Young Gentlemen: The Social Life of man is a subject which for 
several years has occupied, much of the public attention. At this 
moment there is more speculation among men of theory, and more 
earnest thinking among practical men on this subject than on any 
oiher. And even the unthinking, who feel the excitement which 
follows from thought in others, are stirred up, and stand ready [ox 
action. Such moving in the public mind is apt to increase when once 
it has become general, till some actual result, visible to human view, 
has taken place. If the mountain is in labor, a birth is likely to 
ensue; though the thing emergent should be but a mouse. For the 
movement, or rather the tendency to move, creates expectancy ; 
expectancy becomes desire; and desire ends in action. 

And now men are every where expecting a new order of things. 
In Europe they long for it; they demand it; and they will have it 
before long. That is, they will have something different from that 
which has been and yet is, but whether better, or worse, depends on — 
should I undertake to tell you what, I should assume too much, far 
too much, to myself. For the Problem is a great one, — one, in fact, 
which, I think, it is not for human wisdom to work out ; certainly not 
for that kind of wisdom which walks in the light of its own fire, and 
rejoices in the spark of its own kindling, as if it were a sun. 

In Europe the People, we see plainly, demand some change in 
their social life : and, in this country, though there is more content- 
ment among all classes ( — as certainly there is abundantly more 
reason why there should be — ) yet there are among us some, — their 
proportion in numbers relatively to our whole population I have not 
the means of even guessing at with any degree of confidence. — but 
some there certainly are, who are restless and dissatisfied with Social 
Life in these United States, and desirous of something better, — better 
perhaps than what in the nature of things there can ever be here on 
this earth. 

They are hoping for incompatibilities — repugnances — contradic- 
tions. 



[4] 

A homely, certainly a plain, call it, if you will, a coarse instance 
will shew clearly what I mean. A good horse is wanted. Now it is 
really a rare thing to find a good horse — good at all points, and for all 
uses. And, in fact, such an one is not possible in the nature of 
things: — in the nature of all possible things I do not say, but in the 
nature of all the things which actually being united make up that 
noble animal, a horse. Some would not be content with a horse 
that did not answer equally well in harness, or under the saddle, 
carrying corn to mill, or running for a prize on the race-course, 
pulling at the plough, or in the waggon, — single, as in that light affair 
called a buggy, or in company with five others, in a great Conestoga 
broad wheeled machine, equal in tonnage to an ancient ship: — but 
should any good man, in seeking for a horse to be used by all the 
family, sons and daughters, from the chubby urchin of five years old 
to the matron herself, both included, I say, should any householder, 
studious of domestic economy, and aware of this great principle in 
all economy, that a thing is valuable in proportion to the number of 
uses to which it may be put, go out into the horse market, expecting 
to find one which should answer, equally well, all the purposes I 
have mentioned, and over and above these, one that should excel the 
best Short-horn-Durham cow in giving milch — the expectation would, 
I think, by the most of people be considered unreasonable; and 
why? Because, the nature of horses being considered, things in- 
compatible are looked for. 

The wonders which the Physical Sciences have enabled Art to 
perform in the department of unorganized matter, have produced 
upon the less intelligent portion of people an influence which bewil- 
ders. They are lost in amazement and ready to believe any thing. 
That news should pass along a wire with the speed of lightning, is a 
fact, which to them seems full of mystery — a thing stranger than that 
which, though long sought for, has never yet been found, a perpetual 
motion. They do not know that in the Telegraph there is no 
incompatibility; but, in the idea of a perpetual motion, there is. So 
they are not aware that, in the complex problem of Social Life, there 
are laws of nature to be considered, which are altogether different 
from those by which the department of unorganized matter is govern- 
ed. They are, besides this, incapable of those higher efforts of the 
understanding, which are necessary in tracing out and applying the 
general truths of science, of those sciences especially, of which 
organized matter, and its concomitant, Life, are the objects. Nor, 



[5] 

when such truths are explained to them, do they readily apprehend 
how it is, that, in each particular case, the general truth is found, in 
its application, to be limited and modified by others with which it is 
connected. 

For instance, the three words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, which 
the French People sang and shouted with so much enthusiasm, near 
the close of the last century, and which their children are singing 
and shouting now, with enthusiasm as great, and more enlightened, 
let us hope, if properly modified, denote what all men ought to desire 
should have a place in the Social Life. But, as in the mouths of the 
mob then, and the mob now, these words stand for things which are 
incompatible, which never had, nor ever can have existence in any 
form of Social Life, nor any where, except in the incoherent dreams 
and disordered fancies of such madmen as those who tried fifty years 
ago to realize them in France, and force them upon the other nations 
of Europe. The project failed, not at Waterloo, but all along from 
the very first bloody step, to that last in the desolating track in which 
it moved ; it failed utterly. Some good resulted, as some good results 
from all projects; but not enough, one would think, to encourage a 
repetition of the experiment. Brute force cannot govern, much less 
renovate. Equality ! What equality? In some one thing and not 
in all things? If not in all things, and to all persons, equality is the 
very height of in-equality, iniquity, injustice. In all things, and to 
all, do you then say? Well : try it; and see. Your neighbor has a 
capital of five thousand dollars; and you have none. But you are 
twenty years old ; and he is fifty. He was born thirty years before 
you. His labor for thirty years has made the difference ; and were 
you allowed to claim the half of his capital, he must be allowed 
fifteen years of your age. But this, in the nature of things, being 
impossible, you must both remain as you are ; he, with this advantage 
over you, that he has a capital of five thousand dollars more than 
you ; and you, with the advantage, over him, of thirty years time in 
the grand capital of life. Could the nature of things be so far 
changed as to bring the people of each successive generation all at 
once into existence, so that they all might start even in the career of 
life, there would be less injustice in an equalization of property 
among them. Even in that case there would be some injustice, and 
in some instances much cruelty. 

Let us take an instance in which the disparity in question is made, 
not by time, as in the one just now considered, but by a difference of 



[6] 

conduct. Reckless and Thrifty were born on the same day, and in 
circumstances perfectly equal. But their conduct was very different. 
Reckless, even in childhood, was self-willed and ungovernable. He 
looked only to the present, doing always whatever he liked, regardless 
of the consequences. He gave a loose rein to all his propensities, 
and spent his youthful days, and not seldom his nights also, in sports 
and carousing with his dissolute companions. When grown up to 
manhood Reckless married, and, by means of his wife's fortune 
added to the little which remained of his own, contrived to live a [ew 
years longer. By the influence of friends he got an office under 
government. But being unfit for business, the affairs of his office 
were sadly mismanaged; he was turned out; his gambling and 
drinking propensities soon completed his ruin ; and he died in extreme 
want, forsaken and despised. — This portrait, by the way, is not 
imaginary. Nor is its counterpart — Thrifty. — Thrifty, by pursu- 
ing a course in all respects the opposite to that of Reckless, raised 
himself to competence, honor and usefulness in the world. 

Now, Reckless, when poverty came upon him like an armed man, 
— nor is this part of the sketch imaginary, — was clamorous for 
equality. But how could equality be produced, but by compelling 
Thrifty to divide his hard-earned, honestly-acquired competency with 
the dissolute Reckless? Think of the matter, and you will see, that 
in this way, and in this way alone, could equality be produced. Let 
the division be made for once, in despite of justice : — take from 
Thrifty one half of his property and give it to Reckless, and, their 
course of conduct continuing as before, the same division must be 
made again and again. To say nothing of the cruelty and flagrant 
injustice of such policy, every one must see, at once, that it would 
go to destroy the vital principle of social life, and reduce to barbarism 
the nation that should adopt, or permit it. 

The Social Life is founded on the right of property, which means 
simply this, that a man should enjoy a portion of what his labor 
actually produces. Not the whole of it; for government must have 
a share ; since government is the watch-dog without whose aid a man 
could enjoy nothing at all of the fruit of his labor. Without govern- 
ment — to carry on the figure — every man must be his own watch-dog, 
and consequently have no time to labor: — he would have to act as 
becomes a watch-dog: — and he would turn into a savage wolf at last, 
prowling through the uncultivated waste for prey — alone or with his 
kindred gang. 



[7] 

There must be government. Government is as the breath of life 
to man's social nature. And, though to the ignorant it sounds like a 
contradiction, man, as a social being, can be free only in being 
governed. That is the best government which gives to the different 
powers with which The Blessed and Only Potentate endows each 
individual, when imparting to him his existence, the most free and 
perfect scope for exercise. As these powers are exceedingly diversified, 
so will be their exercise and its result, production, wherever this 
freedom is enjoyed. One is better fitted by nature for one kind of 
work, and another for another; and the complex business of social 
life goes on to the best advantage for all, when each is left to employ 
the gifts which the Author of nature has bestowed upon him. And it 
is for society to say what kind of labor shall be encouraged most : 
and society does say it most emphatically. There is no appeal in the 
case. The decision being made, all must conform to it. The idea 
that labor ought to be equally rewarded, estimating it by the hour, is 
one that never can be realized. It is incompatible with the nature of 
man, and the conditions of the Social Life. If a law were enacted 
that the same rate of wages should be paid for mending a broken 
gate, as for setting a bone ; for making fences, as for making laws ; 
for constructing rat-traps, as for building organs ; for steering a ferry- 
boat, as for navigating a frigate ; for butchering pigs, as for commanding 
an army; for laying out roads in the interiour, as for making a trigo- 
nometrical survey of the coast; such a law would be as foolish as 
unjust, for it could not be enforced. In the march of life all cannot 
be foremost. "Wherever there is motion there must be precedence. 
Gradation is Nature's law. Man is not exempt from it, in any 
condition of his social existence. There is equality in the grave ; 
but nowhere else on earth. 

It is for the advantage of all, even for the poor themselves, that 
capital should be unequally distributed. Were it not for accumulated 
capital, where would the poor man grind his corn? It is capital that 
builds the mill. It requires "a heap" of money to build a mill. And 
the water which runs together in a thousand rills to form a stream 
strong enough to turn the mill, is, in this respect, perfectly analagous 
to wealth, which naturally accumulates in comparatively few hands, 
for the purpose of accomplishing great things for the common benefit, 
and especially for the benefit of the poor. 

It is not uncommon to meet with expressions of disapprobation, and 
even of high indignation, at the extravagant expenditure of wealth in 



[8] 

Great Britain, as manifested in the splendid specimens of architecture 
and the Fine Arts, so numerous in that country. The magnificence 
of the churches and cathedrals provokes especial censure. The 
people of Edinburg have incurred reproach for erecting, at a great 
expense, a monument to the memory of Sir Walter Scott. And who, 
I would ask, are the persons employed in the erection of these 
buildings? The poor. Into whose hands goes all that money which 
these buildings cost, during the time which is occupied in taking from 
the quarry the materials, and in constructing them into the mighty 
fabric? Into the hands of the poor. The honest industrious 
laborers and their families get the whole of it. And, could there be 
devised a better method of supplying their wants, than this of ex- 
pending from the stores of the wealthy, in the shape of wages for 
work, money which otherwise would not go into circulation at all, or 
go into it by channels in which the industrious poor, — the mason, the 
carpenter, the painter, the glazier, the smith and the multitude of 
other mechanics and day-laborers, — would never handle a farthing of 
it? To support the poor in idleness is not the thing which the poor or 
the rich should desire for themselves. Nobody should desire to be 
supported in idleness, unless it be such as are disabled by some 
calamity, or the weakness of old age, so that they cannot work. 
Work is the law of Social life. Man was sent into the world to work. 
Work is vocation. In whatever condition he may be placed, he must 
labor in it. He must do battle unceasingly against necessity, or be 
vanquished and led captive by it. Labor is the price he must pay 
for every thing. 

But honest industry deserves its wages. And these ought, in all 
cases, to be sufficient not only to furnish the means of a comfortable 
subsistence to the laborer while employed at his toil, but, over and 
above this, something to lay up for old age, and for relief in case of 
sickness, or any other of those misfortunes which are common to 
man. In this country, every man should, besides all this, derive 
from his labor what may procure him some books, and other means of 
improving his mind in knowledge and moral culture. For this end 
some leisure time will be requisite. Without all this it is most manifest 
that no man can be duly qualified to discharge aright his duties as a 
citizen. Farther still : It is not right that the laborer should be 
debarred from the comforts of a family and a home. His wages 
therefore should be such as to render it prudent for him to marry at 
the proper age. 



[9] 

To persons possessed of reason and humanity these points need 
fio proof: they are self-evident. 

Yet in England, such is the state of things, that multitudes of peo- 
ple cannot, by their labor, procure the necessaries of life. As for 
its comforts, their ambition aspires not so high as to hope for them. 
The spectre of famine ever stares them in the face. Last year the 
Government of England gave about fifty millions of dollars for the 
relief of the famishing Irish, besides the large donations given by the 
Queen, the Prince and the Nobility. Liberal contributions were also 
sent from this country : for the cry of suffering filled the world, 
One man, — his name deserves to be mentioned, — Abbot Lawrence 
gave twenty thousand dollars. All this liberality, however, afforded 
but partial and temporary relief. The source of the evil remains. 
It is an organic disease, deeply seated in the social state, and such 
appliances cannot reach it. The seeds of ,it were long since sown 
by the bloody hand of War. The British nation had its origin in the 
strife of arms, and has seldom been at peace for any length of time. 
What jarring elements have been mixed up in the composition of 
that wonderful people, — the Celt, the Pict, the Dane, the Saxon, the 
Norman ; — the Papist, the Churchman, the Presbyterian, the Cov= 
enanter, the Independent ; — the Plantagenet, the Stewart, the Tudor ; 
—the Red Rose and the White — the King against the Nobles and 
the Nobles against the King and a Democracy against both. Over 
and over again has the nation from which we sprung been melted 
and fused in the fierce flames of war. Her present Constitution and 
fabric of society have been the result. An immense debt has been 
the result, under the burden of which the Giant groans and stagers, 

The interest of this debt U double the amount of the entire expense 
of our Government. To pay it the labor of the nation has to be 
taxed. Here is a matter to be pondered by the philanthropist, — to be 
pondered by us especially. I say that it is the labor of a nation 
which in all cases pays the taxes of the nation, as it pays for every 
thing. Labor pays the tax in the shape of reduced wages, and in 
other ways which need not now be mentioned. And when the labor 
of a people is overburdened their spirit is crushed and their social- 
life languishes and becomes corrupt. 

The truth of this cannot be explained in this place. 

Thus, briefly, however, let it be exhibited: Mind, Force, Motion, 
Work, Products, is the order in which are disposed the things which 
concern man's Social Life. Mind furnishes and employs tnc Force. 
2 



[10] 

which sets things in Motion : regulated Motion is Work : Work 
results in a Product Taxation attacks this last, and sends back its 
withering influence through the series, till it reaches Mind. Since the 
time of Henry VIII, England has had a Mind greater, 1 think, than 
that of Rome, when her glory was the brightest. The Mind of Eng- 
land has generated a Force, which has done great things at hom^ 
and over all the earth. But for this, the weight of her taxes had 
long ago sunk her in the abyss. 

The French have genius inferior to no other people. But whether, 
as a nation, they have a Mind, may be doubted. Through the volcan- 
ic cloud which covers France we discern signs of thought, but what 
sort of thinking is that which could give rise, for example, to such 
a Decree, from the Provisional Government, as this : "Considering 
that the principle of Equality implies a uniformity of costume for 
citizens appointed to perform the same functions, the Provisional 
Government decrees : The representatives of the people shall wear 
a black coat, a white waistcoat with lappels, black-colored pantaloons, 
and a tri-colored silk scarf, ornamented with gold fringe. They 
shail attach to the button-hole on the left side of their coats, a red 
ribbon, on which shall be embroidered the fasces of the Republic." — 

The Decree ends thus : "The President will then rise and say 
'Representatives of the people, in the name of the Republic, one and 
indivisible, the National Assembly is definitively constituted. Vive 
la Republique." The Mind of the nation, with ideas in it taken from 
the milliner shop, mixed up with those of Communism, St. Simonism 
and "association based upon love"- — not without visions of a glory 
which sorts rather badly with "love" — the mind of the nation, which 
loves to call itself Great, if indeed such be its mind, will never 
succeed in the work of regulating itself. It must first understand 
itself. 

A scheme exists in the heads of some people in France, which is 
not without advocates in this country. The object of this scheme is 
to make the Public the sole Owner of all real property. And the 
effect of it would be, that we should have, every year, instead of a 
scramble for office, which is confined to a few, a universal scramble 
for the annual revenue of all property. That is to say, our Form, 
not of government, but of social life, would be entirely changed, and 
the people would become serfs to those in power. The scheme is 
mentioned not as a subject of discussion, which it does not deserve- 
but for the purpose of showing how far the minds of some people 



[11] 

can go in absurdity on such subjects. They think of man as of a 
piece of inert matter, to be hewn or moulded into whatever shape 
they please. Man is not that. Man is a piece of matter with a Will 
in it. There may not, in every case,-be Mind in it; for mind implies 
reason : but there is always Will, and, not unfrequemly, the less 
reason, the more will. 

Now, the piece of matter in which resides the Will, may be so 
situated, as to its relations in the Fabric of the social state, as to put 
something like a force upon the will, determining it to doing what the 
law condemns : and when this is the case to any considerable extent, 
there must be in the Fabric of society itself something which needs 
lobe corrected. Why should there be two million of persons in a 
country who cannot by their labor keep themselves from starving? 
An Irishman, the father of a family, goes fourteen miles to get labor, 
works two days, and earns a stone and an half of meal, brings it 
home untouched and untasted, and falls down dead on the threshold — 
dead from absolute starvation. In such circumstances how many 
fathers, may we not suppose, would have been tempted to steal, rob, 
murder, rather than do as this poor honest man — this heroic sufferer — 
did for the sake of his children? Can we wonder that such extremity 
of suffering should drive people to desperation and madness? 

There is in the History of Eome by the late Dr. Arnold a para- 
graph containing remarks so strikingly just, in relation to this subject, 
that I have thought proper to transcribe them. — "Long periods of 
general suffering make far less impression on our minds, than the 
short sharp struggle in which a kw distinguished individuals perish ; 
not that we over-estimate the horror and the guilt of times of op^-i 
bloodshedding, but we are much too patient to the greater misery and 
greater sin of periods of quiet legalized oppression ; of that most 
deadly of all evils, when law, and even religion herself, are false to 
their divine origin and purpose, and their voice is no longer the voice 
of God, but of his enemy. In such cases the evil derives advantage, 
in a manner, from the very amount of its own enormity. No pen 
can record, no volume can contain the details of the daily and hourly 
sufferings of a whole people, endured without intermission, through 
the whole life of man from the cradle to the grave. The mind itself 
can scarcely comprehend .the wide range of the mischief: how 
constant poverty and insult, long endured as the natural portion of a 
degraded caste, boar with them to the sufferers something yet vvoi 
tfian pain, whether of .the body or the feelings; how they dull 



[12] 

understanding and poison the morals ; how ignorance and ill-treat- 
ment combined are the parents of universal suspicion ; how from 
oppression is produced habitual cowardice, breaking out when 
occasion offers into merciless cruelty; how slaves become naturally 
liars ; how they, whose condition denies them all noble enjoyments, 
and to whom looking forward is only despair, plunge themselves, 
with a brute's recklessness into the lowest sensual pleasures ; how the 
domestic circle itself, the last sanctuary of human virtue, becomes at 
length corrupted, and in the place of natural affection and parental 
care, there is to be seen only selfishness and unkindness, and no other 
anxiety on the part of the parents for their children, than that they 
may, by fraud or by violence, prey in their turn upon that society 
which they have found their bitterest enemy. Evils like these, long 
working in the heart of a nation, render their own cure impossible : a 
revolution may execute judgment on one generation, and that perhaps 
the very one which was beginning to see and to repent of its inherited 
sins ; but it cannot restore life to the morally dead ; and its ill success, 
as if in this line of evils no curse should be wanting, is pleaded by 
other oppressors as a defense of their own iniquity, and a reason for 
perpetuating it forever." 

In this country, blessed with plenty, we can form no conception of 
the misery of which we hear only in other countries, but see nothing, 
and have felt nothing all our lives. — In passing, let me suggest an 
admonition. Would it not be well for us voluntarily to abstain from 
food sometimes, long enough to make us acquainted with some of the 
pangs which starvation, in its incipient stages at least, produce in the 
body of its victim 1 ? In the body I say : for as to the horror it must 
bring upon the mind, no voluntary fasting can reveal to us what it is, 

By this means we might better understand what must have been 
the suffering of the poor Irish, of whom it is computed that no less 
than a million, during the late tremendous visitation, have perished 
for want of food. Yet such is the natural productiveness of Ireland, 
that, under the wretched system of affairs there, the annual exports 
amount to upwards of $100,000,000, nearly equal to those of the 
United States. But this exuberance avails not, because, as already 
intimated, it is absorbed in taxes, which go to pay the interest of the 
national debt. This debt, as we have stated, is the effect of wars. 

Another cause is the way in which the land has been divided in 
Ireland. One man, for example, owns the territory in which Belfast 
is situated, containing sixty thousand inhabitants; others possess 



[13] 

farms of fifteen, ten, five acres; and others of less than an acre. 
Others own no land at all, and make out to exist by renting, according 
to the "con-acre" system, farms, if they may be so called, of half an 
acre, or even a perch ! But this, also, is an effect, for the cause of 
which we must go back to the Feudal System, And that, too, had 
its origin in war, Conceive it thus : Scott and Taylor, and the other 
leaders of our army lately in Mexico, having, we will suppose, 
subjugated that country, proceed to divide it among themselves in 
portions suited to their grade and rank in the army, taking the lion's 
share, and leaving the common soldier to squabble with the enslaved 
Mexican for the remainder. Such was the Feudal System, establish- 
ed over Europe, when it fell into the hands of those military chief- 
tains who overturned the Roman Empire. In this system the ■ 
present governments of Europe had their origin. Under it we sec 
what belongs to the common people. The same that belonged to the 
common soldier, and which cannot be better expressed than in the 
words of the definition which your Grammars give of the meaning 
of the Verb, namely, "To be,to do, and to suffer." Let us hope for 
them a better portion. They will get it some day, — peaceably if they 
can, forcibly, if they must. Another cause of the evil, which we are 
contemplating in the state of things in Ireland, is superstition. A 
rapid glance at a page in the history of that unfortunate Island, will 
give you to understand something about this. 

Pope Adrian III., who was by birth an Englishman, bestowed upon 
Henry II., king of England, a right to Ireland. How he, the said 
Pope, came by this right, you need not now be told ; except in this 
brief way, that it was by means of superstition, a thing which con- 
nected itself with the Feudal System in a manner which we in these 
United States might do well to consider. The sum of it is this. 
The Feudal Potentates gave their power to the Pope. In virtue of 
this grant the Pope Adrian III. gave Ireland, as I said, to Henry II. 
But the Irish people did not like it, that their island should come 
under the power of Henry : so they made resistance, which proved 
ineffectual, however, through the traitorous conduct of one of their 
own Kings, Dermot Mac Morrogh. The case shews a bad trait in 
the Melesian — I mean the individual, king Dermot Macmorogh. He 
took a fancy to the wife of one of his neighbor kings ; and so, in her 
husband's absence, carried off the fair lady. Her name was Dover- 
gilda : her husband's name was Ororic. Ororic, enraged at Dermot 
for such villainy, got Roderic, another of the Irish king?, to help him 



[14] 

to revenge. They accomplished the enterprize, by driving Dermot 
from his throne and kingdom. So far the story of the revenge goe s 
according to our wishes: but no farther: for Dermot had recourse 
to Henry II king of England ; and by the help of Kichard Strongbow, 
Earl of Strigal, Robert Fitz Stephens, powerful subjects of Henry, 
and other adventurers, he raised a force, which, after much fighting 
with Roderie, Ororic, and their party, reduced them and the whole of 
Ireland under the power of Henry. These things happened in the 
last half of the Twelfth century. But Ireland continued still in an 
unquiet state, torn by dissentions and bloody strife, till 1649. In this 
year Cromwell quelled its insurgent spirit, by a terrible blow, which 
struck down many in the silence of death, caused the ears of all who 
survived to tingle, and transferred four fifths of the land from the 
former owners to the possession of those who fought under his victo- 
rious banner. 

This is a slight specimen of the many ills which Superstition has, 
in the lapse of ages, ever aiming to rule, brought upon that unhappy 
people. 

The Mind of England, acting through Oliver Cromwell, took this 
way to check the high pretensions of Superstition aspiring to rule by 
virtue of authority from the Vicar of God. All along since the 
Reformation, this, indeed, has been its way, till recently it has begun 
to try another and perhaps a better way, that of conciliation and 
concession. 

To a people in the condition indicated in the foregoing remarks the 
application of moral influences for the improvement of their charac- 
ter, could such influences be applied, promises but little. You need 
not preach to a starving man. His empty stomach and his famishing 
children cry louder than your voice. Had you an angeFs tongue 
you could not win his attention to any thing but bread. Mock not 
him — mock not his Maker, and yours, by any other offering than of 
that which will chase away, the chills of death from the emaciated, 
half-clad body. When the hand of Love has done this, you may 
talk to your poor brother of what concerns the health of his immortal 
soul. What am I saying? The health of his immortal soul, is not 
this the very way to restore it? Is not this the very way in which 
you can best preach to him the blessed Gospel of the grace of God ? 
Look into his immortal soul, and you will see that the disease which 
has come upon it, is the sullenness of Despair. His energies having 
been exhausted, in an unavailing struggle with the necessities of his 



[15] 

condition, a condition in which the arrangements, and in some sense 
the very progress, of society has placed him, he has given himself up 
to be devoured by, '"Hungry Ruin," which has long "had him in the 
wind;" and now, nothing remains for him but to "curse God and 
die." Such is his soul's malady. And the "balm" wherewith to 
heal it, is Charity. Shew him that there is sympathy for him in 
human hearts — benevolence — not that which says fine words, but 
that which does good deeds, and is, in fact, benificence, — not "pass- 
ing by on the other side," but kindly approaching the sufferer, and 
taking care of him, and with tenderness, the tenderness of love and 
pity, ministering to his relief. Shew him thus that there is sympathy 
for him in human hearts; and of himself, he will begin to think that 
there is such a thing as "the grace of God" — and a Gospel of good 
news for the poor. Let him find a brother on earth and he will 
recognize a Father in Heaven. His thoughts will take a new 
direction; and, as he looks into himself and reflects upon the 
he will see that it was not because Heaven had no care for him, while 
Earth hated him. and society cherished a dark and settled purpose of 
doing him wrong on every hand, and aggravating the wrong by 
contempt ; but because of some misconduct on his part that he was 
plunged into such an abyss of misery. 

In the course of the late trials in Ireland it appeared in evidence, 
in a certain case, that a very worthy gentleman, while doing every 
vinng in his power for the relief of the suffering poor around him, 
was waylaid and shot dead by one of then:, 

Such instances of horrid cruelty and ingratitude do occur. But 
they are no new thing in the world; and they invalidate not the truth 
here advanced. For the most deplorable thing in the condition of a 
degraded population, is that in their character which causes tncm to 
mistake the character of others with whom they have to do. They 
regard their best friends as enemies; and implicititly give themselves 
up to the guidance of such as lead them to ruin. 'Crucify! him! 

crucify him!" "Not this man, but Barnabas!" are cries, which 

they often make to men in power — purposes which they often execute 
themselves. But Divine Benevolence still makes for them the prayer 
and the apology first uttered on Calvary, and fainting not goes on in 
her work of regeneration. It is a slow work, the regeneration of a 
people. Whoever would succeed in tt must expect to suifer, among 
other things, reproaches, and, it may be, violence from those whom 
he would save. History gives no instance in the past as an exception 



[IGj 

to the truih of this remark; and it is hoe wise to expect Ci\u in the 
future. Nor should the philanthropist be in the Least- discouraged at 

this. Let him look at Nature. Nature, when producing anything 
great, is neither hasty nor noisy in her work : but Nature ever suc- 
ceeds, for she never tires, nor gives up her enterprise in despair. 

If, "the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number'' be 
the object of the social state, we may justly felicitate ourselves on our 
happy form of Government ; since it is better adapted to this end than 
any of the other forms which have hitherto been tried in the experi- 
ence of nations. But we probably ascribe too much to this cause in the 
past, and we are certainly in danger of trusting too much to it in the 
future. We owe much more to the hand of Providence in this matter, 
than people generally are aware of. It was this which furnished the 
Field in which our Institutions have been planted, such a field as never 
before was allotted to any other people for an inheritance. I refer 
not merely, nor principally, to our ample territory, so ample that we 
are wont to measure it, not by leagues but by climates and degrees of 
longitude, and so abounding in the elements of wealth, in its soil, in 
its minerals, in its streams and broad rivers, that every thing requisite 
to. sustain a mighty population, in the enjoyment of all the comforts 
and most of the luxuries of life, can be produced and exchanged with 
the least possible amount of labor, — I refer not to these things, vast in 
importance though they unquestionably arc, but I refer to the newness 
of the country, and the character of the people who procured it, 
fairly in most cases, from the Aborigines. In the social state of the 
continents of the Old woifld evils derived from remote as;es have 
settled on most of the nations, penetrated their very vitals, and become 
so inveterate, that their wisest statesmen are unable to devise a curer 
In this country there exists but one such evil. Except litis one, 
society, in its progress here, had no other obstacle to remove, but such 
as rude nature had, in the exuberance of her strength, put in its way. 
Fire and sword are not the instruments for removing these, but fire 
and the axe. Hard work of this sort, and much of it, was here to be 
done. But this may be reckoned, upon the whole, as an advantage. 
People soon degenerate who have little to do ; and I count it among 
the advantages of the social state in this new country, that if any one 
wants work he need not go far to find it, and that such as yields an 
adequate return. 

As to the character of the people who colonized this country, 
which is the second of the causes to which, under God, the prosperity 



[17] 

of this nation is to be attributed, much has been said on public ocea* 
sions by orators. It affords them a standing theme of eulogy, which 
is not always discriminating and sometimes extravagant. On such a 
subject, however, the sternness of criticism must- relax, when it is 
remembered that it is pious in children to think well of their fathers, 
and that, as with prospects, so with characters, "it is distance that lends 
enchantment to the view." Whatever else may be said of their 
faults, the people who founded this nation possessed one noble attribute 
in a very superior degree, a susceptibility of improvement, a trait which 
marks whatever on earth is destined to distinction. Individuals differ 
in nothing so much as in this. One makes rapid progress, till he 
attains a certain point ; there stops, and then, perhaps, falls back 
again. Another shoots forward, at first not at all, but afterwards p 
with a rate of motion which increases till the last hour of life. So 
with a whole people. China has remained for ages stationary : and 
so have the Asiatic nations generally. So with those in Africa. So 
with most of the European races since the Reformation. Spain has 
gone back. Germany has perhaps advanced ; and Italy. But France 
has not. England has unquestionably. Ireland, on the contrary, 
iemains where she was. The colonies of Spain on this continent, it 
is said, have degenerated greatly. It is no vain boast to say, that this 
has not been the case with us. Before the Revolution, the people of 
the then colonies were proceeding steadily, and with wonderful 
rapidity, in the career of improvement. At that period, they shewed 
to an admiring world a Washington. Since that period, the United 
States have not faltered in their onward course. No second Washington 
has indeed appeared. But I am speaking of social life, not of indi- 
viduals, and I hesitate not to say, it is better on the whole than it was 
at the close of the last century. Better, I do uot mean, because we 
have multiplied in numbers, extended our territory, increased our 
navy and our army, our commerce by sea and land, our manufactures 
and our agricultural productions ; nor yet because, in the Sciences 
and Literature and in the Fine Arts, we have so far advanced as to 
enter the lists of competition with England herself. — The well known 
taunt of the Edinburg Review, uttered so late as 1815, could not be 
uttered now, — But I speak not of these things, but of something 
nobler, higher, better than these, less visible, but more felt ; I speak 
of things that are not to be counted like dollars, but enjoyed like the 
light of the sun and the breath of heaven, — not to be measured by 
cubic feet as you might measure the massive fortifications by which 
3 



[18] 

Louis Philippe thought to render Paris impregnable, — but known as 
the strong man knows his strength, when he goes forth rejoicing to 
run his race ; — to be weighed not as the planter weighs his bales of 
cotton on the wharf, but as the mother weighs in the scales of affec- 
tion the infant which she cherishes in her bosom. I speak of things, 
in short, which belong not to the outward state of a people, but to the 
genius, the spirit, the Mind of a people, — mutual confidence and 
respect, fraternal affection, concord, deference, candor, courtesy, the 
spirit of kindness and conciliation, love of order, respect for law ; 
and what results from all these, a sense of safety. These are better 
to the rich man than his hoarded millions : and they impart to the 
simple enjoyments of the cottage a dignity and tranquility unknown 
to kings. 

In respect to these things, we have been, so far, proceeding as a 
people in a course of improvement; and these are the things which 
constitute the social life, or, at any rate, give value to it. 

To what are they owing? To character, doubtless. But what forms 
character? the character af a nation? What formed the character of 
this nation? Circumstances.. The past gives its impulse and im= 
pression to the present; the -.present to the future. There is some 
truth in this philosophy ; but it is not the whole truth. Did circum- 
stances form the character of Lafayette? 

What made the Frenchman in character so different from his 
neighbor the Spaniard ; and both so different from the Englishman ; 
and all three still more to differ from the Irishman? I meddle not 
with physiological speculations. We have to do with moral causes 
on this occasion ; as these concern us most in what we have to do in 
the course of our individual life : and of these I make no doubt that 
Christianity was the one, which imparted to the social life of this 
nation its character. 

Consider what Christianity did for those thoughtful, earnest-minded 
people from whom we are descended. 

It gave them a body of Literature, with the Bible at the head of it, — 
that book of books, book of blessings, replete with lessons of divine 
wisdom. 

It gave them the Sabbath — radiating holy influences. It gave them 
family discipline, the father, as priest, presiding over the domestic 
circle, making it a nursery for the young, bringing them up in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord. 

It gave mem a church, broken, indeed, in the concussion of the 



[19] 

times of the Reformation, but, nevertheless, exerting, in various ways, 
a moral power, which, on the whole, was pure and salutary. 

By these means a sense of accountability to The Moral Governor 
of the Universe was maintained and kept alive in the public mind. 
This is that which has preserved the community in a healthful state. 
When this Sense of accountability to Almighty God shall depart 
from among us, our glory and our strength will depart with it, the 
bonds of society will be relaxed; and, though our form of govern- 
ment and our laws may remain, social confidence, social security, 
social faith, social life will be at an end. And individual comfort, so 
far as affected by social relations, will be no more. And what is there 
in individual comfort which is not affected by these relations'? The 
thistle in your neighbor's field sends, floating on the breeze, its many 
seeds, to settle on yours. His distempered horses, herds, flocks, 
infect yours. Stagnant pools on his premises create miasma danger- 
ous to your health. If his children grow up without moral culture, 
your children will be seduced by their evil company and example. 
Is he a drunkard? — But in what remains of this day, were this 
discourse to go on till darkness should come over the sky, I could not 
enumerate the many ways in which the interests of each individual 
are liable to be obstructed, or promoted, by means of his social 
relations. 

When the majority are corrupt, it is in vain to talk of civil liberty, 
or social life. A corrupt people cannot be free. They must be bound 
in fetters of despotic rule. They themselves will forge the fetters ; 
and the only question will be who shall wear them : but in fact they 
shall wear them themselves. For nations there is no retribution in a 
future state. They are rewarded and punished here. In both cases 
themselves are the instruments. They forge their own fetters. The 
fire at which the chains are forged is fire from hell : that which melts 
and dissolves them is from God's altar. 

Let not these truths be forgotton. Their importance increases 
every year with the increase of our population. The tide of emi- 
gration from all quarters of the Old World pours itself incessantly 
upon our shores. It is composed not of those only who seek refuge 
among us from the ills and wrongs which oppressed them in their 
native country : some of them are fugitives from justice — from 
infamy. Soon, instead of a score of millions there will be an hundred 
millions in these United States. What shall control such a mass of 
people ? if they shall be led to think that beyond this life they have 



[20] 

nothing to hope or fear? Not any power known to our government, 
constituted as it now is. Not any power compatible with civil liberty. 
Young Gentlemen : I need not tell you what influence these con- 
siderations ought to have on your future conduct. I shall only say, 
in conclusion, that by considering them and acting accordingly, you 
will best promote the interest of your country. Do your part, then, 
in improvement of all kinds, especially in the improvement of mind. 
If you have a good thought, give it out for the benefit of others. 
Scorn not to engage in any good work, however humble. Improve 
every thing, on which thought, or tongue, or hand, can act. Coun- 
tenance nothing which is contrary to honesty and fair-dealing in social 
life. Above all, and first of all, improve your ownselves. So shall 
you be the better prepared to act for the general good, in whatever 
sphere it may please Providence to place you : Commending you to 
whose keeping, we bid you an affectionate Adieu ! 




!£--! 



NINETEENTH 

AMUAL COMMENCEMENT 

OF THE INDIANA UNIVERSITY. 



Wednesday, September 27, 1848, 



ORDER OF EXERCISES: 



"Human Progress," 



ORLANDO CLARK, Vernon, Indiana. 



Triumphs of Truth, 



R, FULLERTON, Fayetteville, Tennessee, 



Aspect of the Age, 

I, Wi LOVEi New Amsterdam, Indiana. 

Veneration for the Good, 

R, M, OVERSTREET, Franklin, Indiana, 

The Practical in Life, 

J, C, THORNTON, Paoji, Indiana. 



Reputation, 



W, T, WYLIE, Eden, Illinois. 



Baccalaureate and Degrees conferred, 

By the President 



Address to the Class in the Evening, 

By J. C. Vaughan of Louisville 





Tribune Print, Bloominglon . 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS < 



028 342 327 i 



